“We need to keep moving,” Seanna said without looking at us.
“No,” Aoife said as she marched past, ignoring me. She grabbed Seanna’s arm and spun her around so Aoife could get right in her face.
The Ashlings reacted as one. They brought long, polished poles I hadn’t noticed before up in an offensive stance, ready to pounce on Aoife.
“Aoife,” I warned.
“I’m not taking another step until you give us some answers,” Aoife hissed.
Seanna glanced at me, then at Aoife, a bemused smirk on her lips. “Then don’t. Stay here. I’m sure the felesh could use a good meal.”
Aoife’s grip on the slight girl’s wrist tightened. “Gaige and I aren’t going anywhere until you give us some answers.”
Seanna glanced at Aoife’s hand on her wrist before turning her eyes to me.
Aoife’s eyes followed. “Right, Gaige?”
I shrank beneath those four very intense eyes. I felt like a morning glory withering under the onslaught of a particularly effective weed killer. I felt like an adult shrunk to toddler size, trying to get my feet to touch the ground while sitting on a “big people” chair. I felt like I had to make a decision right then and there. None were particularly good feelings.
I had been rolling with whatever came up until that moment. I’d let the events of the past couple days pull me along like I was floating on an inner tube down a river, not caring how bad the rapids churned and whirled around me. I’d just held on to that inner tube with a white-knuckled grip and waited for the waters to calm.
I couldn’t do that anymore. I had to take control of my life somehow and Aoife was forcing me to. I didn’t have any delusions I’d be able to paddle to the shore and climb off that inner tube, but I had to take as much control as I could even if that meant sticking my feet in the water and kicking them like a child throwing a tantrum.
I knew the choice I had to make. I could push forward through this nightmare dream and maybe help my mom, or I could turn back and go home. Home. Was that really even a place anymore? It was just a prison where I’d felt sorry for myself and done nothing but let life drag me under and along the rocky river bottom. I knew how that felt in both the literal and figurative sense.
I expected Aoife’s eyes to turn golden. They didn’t. She just stared at me, her dark hazel eyes contrasting wildly with Seanna’s bright blues. I ducked my head and turned to the side, assuming a posture I hoped took on the appearance of thinking. But I knew the answer. I knew what I had to do. Maybe I didn’t have as much control in that river as I thought I did no matter how hard I kicked.
“Maybe somebody can take Aoife back up the gateway,” I said barely above a whisper. “It’s still open, isn’t it?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I couldn’t help but notice Aoife’s shoulders slump.
***
In the end, Aoife stayed with us. With me. She walked as far from me as possible, but she had refused to leave me on this planet alone. When Seanna insisted I wasn’t alone, Aoife told her she meant “alone” as in the lack of real people, not vegetation.
I decided I didn’t want to think about Aoife or the reasoning behind my decision as we walked. When I had tried to talk to her about her not staying, she’d moved away without a word. It caused a momentary flash of anger like a piece of flash paper igniting explosively, only to burn out in a blink.
Instead, I turned my thoughts to Seanna. She walked ahead of me and studiously avoided looking in my direction. She moved with her back straight and her arms swinging ever so slightly back and forth. No wasted movement. The Ashlings around us walked in very much the same manner. Their barked feet made no noise as they stepped lightly with precision and care just like Seanna’s bare feet.
I tried to imagine her looking like them, covered in hard, gray and brown bark-like skin, her hair coarse, hanging down her back, wound together in either a braid or in something resembling dreadlocks. I was having a hard time with it. The Ashlings were all as skinny as she was, but that was where the similarities ended. Her hair was too blond, her skin too smooth. Then again, I again remembered grabbing her wrist. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like snatching up a fallen tree limb. I wondered if I had imagined the feel of it. Maybe my brain was just over exaggerating how her skin really felt. I wanted to remember it like extremely dry skin in need of a bottle of lotion, but the more I thought about it, the rougher her wrist felt.
I glanced at Aoife, but she avoided looking at me as much as Seanna. I fought off a wave of loneliness. It unnerved me to feel so alone, even though I should have been used to it. I understood Aoife was pissed at me for siding with Seanna, but was I really taking her side? I didn’t think I was. I just needed something to do to make myself matter. If there was the slightest chance I could help my mom, I was going to take it. I was sure Aoife would do the same for her family.
I assumed the reason Seanna avoided looking at me was due to embarrassment. It was a stretch, but it was the only thing I could come up with. She was the most self-assured girl I’d ever known, even more than Aoife, but to have her true nature revealed to somebody she had worked to hide it from must have been unnerving in its own right. She had worked so hard on this facade to look like us, Aoife and me. To go through the gateway. To get into our school, to get into my literature class. She accomplished them all with flying colors.
I took a closer look. I couldn’t see any cracks in her veneer of humanity. No stray leaf poking out. No darkening of skin. No creaking as she walked. She was human as far as I was considered, like she said.
I glanced at the Ashling to my left. He creaked when he walked, swaying like a tree in the wind. He must have sensed my gaze on him because he turned his head toward me. I quickly dropped my gaze to watch the forest floor in front of me. It looked just like any other forest floor. It could have been a forest back on Earth. There wasn’t much difference other than oddly shaped leaves. They lay scattered, long dead, among roots that could have stuck out of the ground back home. And the sounds. Even the sounds had become familiar to me. I had even started picking what sounds belonged to certain birds. That long trill ending in two quick chirps was from the dark gray birds with three thin, red bands on both wings. The insistent call that sounded like a mix of whistling and clucking was the small, brown bird with a cream-colored belly and tail that hung three times its body length. And that vibrating whistle that started off on a high note and sunk a few octaves was from a…
Long, thin, rough branch-like fingers curled around my upper arm and I instinctively jerked away. My head whipped up at the Ashling walking alongside me.
“We are here,” it…he said, dropping his hand back to his side.
“Oh.” I glanced around. The forest looking pretty much like what we’d been walking through all day. “Where?”
Aoife stepped beside me, bumped my shoulder, and pointed up. I followed her finger up into the trees and my jaw nearly hit the tops of my shoes. Spreading out above us, stretching for as far as I could see, was what I could only describe as a tree house of epic proportions. More like a collection of tree houses. They reached out to the size of a small city. In the gathering night, lights twinkled all through the trees, which were alive with movement.
When I was about twelve, not long before my parents’ accident, a group of friends and I found an old oak tree in the woods behind a row houses where one of them lived. I couldn’t remember his name. The old tree trunk was so thick, when the three of us tried to form a chain around it by clasping hands we just barely made it all the way around. About seven feet up, its branches, thick and drooping with weight, stuck out, forming the perfect place for a tree house. One of my friends, I think his name was Sam—Why couldn’t I remember their names?—His father was a contractor. So, we raided his backyard for building materials and went to work. We nailed two-by-fours up the trunk to use as a ladder and a large piece of plywood was secured in the limbs for the floor of our tree house. We were quite proud of
just that accomplishment. We had grand plans to make the simple tree house into an impressive fort. Then Sam stepped back too close to the edge where the plywood wasn’t supported and it buckled. He fell. He broke his arm. The next day, his dad tore the pieces of wood out of the tree and locked his shed.
I had a hard time remembering my friends’ names, but I remembered that feeling of accomplishment and purpose. That piece of board nailed to the branches might as well have been a penthouse in the heart of New York City for all the pride we felt. Thinking back, it might as well have been a piece of cardboard as I gazed, open-mouthed, at the tree house city overhead.
“That’s where we’re going?” I asked.
“How do we get up there?” Aoife added.
As she did, an Ashling approached a thick tree. He grabbed the sides and scampered up with ease to a branch directly overhead about ten yards up. Two guards greeted him, crossing arms to pat each other’s forearms. One by one, the other Ashlings followed. Seanna, without a glance in our direction, stepped to the tree and wrapped her arms around it. She hopped up, using her feet to propel herself further and grabbing unseen handholds.
The last Ashling on the ground extended an arm in invitation toward the tree.
“How are we supposed to get up there?” Aoife asked again, tilting her head back to look at the branch overhead.
“Climb, I guess,” I answered.
“Yeah. Not happening.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“Guess you’ll have to stay down here by yourself.” I took a step to the tree. It didn’t look that hard of a climb. I ran a hand down the tree. The bark was smooth. Okay, maybe a little bit difficult.
“Don’t you dare leave me down here, Gaige,” Aoife said.
“Come on then. I’ll help.” I turned and bent over, locking my fingers together to form a step.
Aoife didn’t budge.
The remaining Ashling cleared his throat. It sounded like a quick wind howling through a hollow tree trunk with a little bit of phlegm thrown in for effect. He held a thick vine that dangled from somewhere beyond the branch. The end was tied in a loop. He held it out toward Aoife. “Sit in the loop and you will be pulled up. You can go first. Then your mate.”
“He is not my mate.” She gave him a withering glare.
“My apologies,” he said with a bow of his head. He held the vine out to her again. “At your leisure.”
She held her glare on him a moment longer to make sure he understood her displeasure in the assumption before stepping forward. He held the loop for her to slip into and positioned it just below her butt. The slack tightened and she sat on the loop. The vine creaked and she squeaked as her feet left the ground. She quickly covered the noise with a cough.
I watched her ascend toward the branch and felt male pride creep in like a fungus. No way was I going to be lifted up like a girl. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but come on, I could handle climbing a tree. How many trees had I climbed in my lifetime? Sure, they all had low branches I could grab and pull myself up with, but I was sure I could conquer this one. I turned back to the tree trunk. It was thick enough that I couldn’t wrap my arms all the way around it. That would be a problem, but I was sure I could climb it. I scooped some dirt into my hands and rubbed them together. I found a groove in the bark just above my head and dug my fingers in, using it to pull myself up. I used the arches of my feet to stabilize myself enough to find a higher grip.
I managed this two more times before my fingers started to hurt. Another couple of times pulling myself up and my arms shook. I considered myself pretty strong, but climbing the tree was all arms and something I was all together used to. My shoes slipped often and I slid a couple times. I glanced over my shoulder to find I’d only made it about a quarter of the way up to the branch. A part of me was ready to admit defeat. I wanted to slide down and use the vine loop, saving my body while taking a shot to the dignity. I almost did call it quits, but that male pride reared its ugly, fungusy head. It dangled a made-up image of sidelong glances from the Ashlings and Seanna in front of me, putting my embarrassment on full display. It showed an image of Aoife smirking at me. That was something I was used to, so I didn’t need to give her another reason to look at me like that.
“Any day now,” Aoife called down.
I wanted to throw a glare up at her, but I was afraid shifting my head would cause me to lose my tenuous grip. Even if I did manage to keep ahold of the tree, I was sure I didn’t have the energy to formulate a coherent comeback anyway. Concentrating on not falling and breaking something like Sam had taxed my brain to the limit.
I can’t say how long it took. I really don’t know, but I made it. I stood triumphantly on the branch with the others. My whole body hurt and my fingers were bleeding at the nails, but my male pride was intact like a happy little mushroom glorifying in a pile of cow crap. The last Ashling stepped around me. Just moments ago, when I had finally made it to the branch, I looked down and saw him on the ground. My mushroom wilted a little.
“Well, are we going?” I snapped as everybody stood around waiting for me to pull myself together.
“Indeed, we are, Gatekeeper,” one of the Ashlings said. “Out of curiosity, as I’m sure you have your reasons, why did you climb the tree without assistance from your ability?”
“My ability?” I asked.
“Later,” Seanna interrupted. “We are expected.”
“Expected by whom?” Aoife asked.
Seanna ignored her and stepped onto a rope bridge tied to the branch. It was made of rough-cut wood tied together with vines. The bridges, there were many, hopped from branch to branch, sloping higher from the ground. The further into the city the bridges went, the bigger the trees got until they reached massive proportions greater than the Redwoods. They reached thirty feet in diameter with limbs as big as regular trees. I closed my mouth and tried not to stare at the tops so I wouldn’t get a kink in my neck.
After we had crossed a few bridges, we started passing dwellings seemingly carved out of whole pieces of trees. Curious Ashlings poked their heads out of openings to watch us pass. The lights I had seen twinkling in the trees earlier were small lamps spread out among the buildings and walkways strung between trees. Except they weren’t lamps. I looked closer as we passed. A long vine wound around the branch that made up a handrail, continuing its journey through the trees and out of sight. A sprout stuck out of the vine, ending in a large leaf that formed a conical-shaped cup. A soft glow came from somewhere down the middle. I tried to look into it, but the way the cupped leaf twisted hid the light source from view.
“Rinair plants,” Seanna said, the first time she had addressed me directly since her big reveal. “The light is caused by the plant’s photosynthesis. Is that what you call it? During the day,” she went on without waiting for a reply, “the chemicals in the plant collect and react to sunlight. When the sun goes down, it glows.”
“It looks like somebody dropped a glow stick in it,” I said.
“Except natural.”
We walked on, my head spinning like it was on a swivel. The Ashlings and their city was the first truly odd thing I’d come across since we’d stepped out of the gateway. The bat things weren’t completely out of the realm of possibility. The Jo-Shar looked like large humans. Even those big cats—what did Seanna call them? Felesh ?—even they seemed familiar, like beefed-up, pissed-off mountain lions. But the Ashlings were something utterly foreign. Like something that had stepped out of a Tolkien novel and I was a six-foot Hobbit fresh from the shire.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you what?” She continued walking through the maze of bridges and homes, ascending higher into the trees.
“What you are.” I fell in step beside her.
“You knew that back when we were with the Jo-Shar.”
“Yeah, an Ashling. That told me so much,” I said with a good dose of sarcasm.
“Well, now you know exactly what
it means,” she said with forced coolness.
“Is that what you look like?” I raised my chin at one of the tree creatures walking ahead of us.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked again.
“Tell you what exactly? You knew what you needed to know. I can help you and your mom. Does it matter what I really look like? Would you have been so eager to follow a talking tree? This is what I look like as far as you should concern yourself,” she said, indicating her current human form. She snapped her mouth shut with the finality that came from a girl who was finished with a particular conversation.
17
Meet the Parents
As we walked from tree to tree without an end in sight, it started to sink in just how wide-ranging in scope the tree city really was. When I looked out from the walkways, little lights twinkled as far as I could see. Gate City, with a population of about sixty thousand people, wasn’t exactly a sleepy little town, but neither was it a sprawling metropolis. If I had to make a guess, I would have gone with the Ashling city being about twice as large, covering an area at least three times my hometown.
Needless to say, we walked for a while longer. I had hoped reaching the city would be the end of our journey, but it seemed never ending as we moved deeper and deeper into the cluster of redwood-like trees. The large canopy of leaves overhead blocked out whatever light the moon or stars might have provided, and the leaf-light had a radius of no more than ten feet at best. I became acutely aware of the extreme darkness below the walkways as I glanced over a railing. I moved away from the edge as nonchalantly as I could, trying to not imagine somehow tripping, tipping over the railing, and falling out of sight to the ground hidden somewhere below. The thought made my stomach flop. Usually I didn’t have a problem with heights, but by the constant rising of bridges we crossed, I could tell we were well off the ground. With the dark pushing up like a black hole swallowing the world below, it was easy to develop a severe vertigo inducing fear of heights.
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 16
